Tuesday, April 21, 2009

I wish I could say "Ding Dong the witch is dead" to go along with the title of today's entry, but the flying monkeys are still circling the poppy fields.

Dick Cheney is now saying that torture is acceptable if it yields results and, damn it, now he wants the top secret memos made public to prove that his torture program kept us safe.

Even though I seriously doubt that by waterboardingAbuZubayda 83 times in August 2002, and Khalid SheikhMohammed 183 times in March 2003, our government got any actionable intelligence that kept us safe from harm, I'm also relatively positive that our treatment of "detainees" has served as a reliable recruitment method for their friends and families.

I was really going to deal with the case before the Supreme Court today on this program... that of the then-13 year old who was strip searched at her school because some other kid said she had (gasp) prescription strength ibuprofen! If the US Supreme Court rules that school personnel can violate the privacy of a child in such a manner, with no proof or even a reasonable assurance that the child is putting other kids at risk and without first notifying her parents, then I'll have to find an alternate way to educate my child.

But I'll see what the outcome is before I get too crazy.

Instead, I made the mistake of watching MSNBC's "Morning Joe" for just long enough this morning to see this exchange...

Joe Scarborough has got to be one of the most offensive hosts on television today. Perhaps Fox can hire him away from MSNBC so he'll be with more of his ilk.

After seeing that segment this morning, I take back every nasty thing I ever said about Chris Matthews. I won't go as far as to say that he's my new hero; but I will admit that, now, I think we're kindred spirits! (You'll have to listen to today's podcast to hear why!)

In addition to my rants about Clueless Joe, today's Radio or Not episode includes an interview with Ray McGovern who, for close to 30 years worked as a CIA analyst. He's a founder of Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), who came to my attention in 2006, when he stood up at a Q&A session with then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and confronted him on his lies.

See it for yourself here:

I spoke with Ray McGovern Friday during my Air America Radio program, the day after the infamous torture memos were released.

Just as I was finishing up production on today's podcast, a story with the headline Obama open to prosecution, probe of interrogations hit the wires. It reports that, after his meeting in the Oval Office today with King Abdullah of Jordan, President Obama proclaimed that the decision on whether or not to prosecute those who justified the torturing of prisoners was up to the Justice Department, and not his to make!